“I thought I had a big speed advantage on him,” Wagner said. “I
wanted to take the fight to him, because he’s a monster.”

Wagner sent a blistering overhand right across the bow after an
opening exchange between the two yielded no advantage. The blow put
Sylvia on his heels, as he backed all the way across the cage and
into the opposite fence. There, Wagner let loose with a six-punch
combination that dropped Sylvia face-first at his feet and forced
referee Jason Herzog to intervene on his behalf. Sylvia protested
the stoppage but had trouble standing in the immediate aftermath,
rattled by the heavy blows from his 6-foot-4, 260-pound
counterpart.

“I caught him with one,” Wagner said. “When he got to the fence, he
couldn’t back up anymore.”

The defeat snapped a four-fight winning streak for the 34-year-old
Sylvia, who weighed in at 311 pounds for the bout.

In the co-main event, Jason High
needed less than a minute to dispatch Rudy Bears. A
finalist in the 2009 Dream welterweight grand prix, High submitted
the Bellator Fighting Championships veteran with a lightning-quick
guillotine choke 51 seconds into the first round.

High scored with a single-leg takedown inside the first 30 seconds,
snatched the choke and coaxed the tapout. He barely broke a sweat.
The 29-year-old Kansas City, Mo., native has rattled off four
consecutive victories since being released by the UFC following a
unanimous decision loss to Charlie
Brenneman in March.

Wagner was not the only fighter to spring an upset.

The little-known Aaron
Derrow rendered “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 4 alum Rich
Clementi unconscious with a third-round triangle choke in a
catchweight showcase. The hold finished Clementi, a late
replacement for World Extreme Cagefighting veteran L.C. Davis,
3:35 into round three. The result left the crowd stunned and
reduced Derrow to tears.

Having already been mounted twice, Derrow was clearly behind in the
fight. However, he lulled the experienced Clementi into a false
sense of security at the base of the cage. A failed flying triangle
attempt from Derrow left him in bottom position, where his foe
figured to hold the upper hand. A Grindhouse MMA product, Derrow
deftly trapped Clementi in the choke, cut off his escape routes and
waited for the blackout.

Outside of a straight right hand from the underdog in the second
round, Clementi controlled much of the bout. He threatened to
finish it himself with a rear-naked choke in round two and chopped
away at Derrow with short elbows from the top, resulting in
superficial cuts to the face. However, his night’s work unraveled
inside the clutches of “Daddy Long Legs.”

According to Compustrike
data, Clementi outlanded Derrow 79-9 before being submitted.

Meanwhile, UFC veteran Drew
McFedries weathered a second-round knockdown, shook off some
ring rust and mangled the face of Gary
Tapusoa en route to a one-sided finish in a featured
middleweight bout. The end came 4:42 into round three.

In his first appearance since September 2009, McFedries started
slowly but picked up his pace as the fight deepened. A straight
counter right hand from the stocky, 5-foot-7 Tapusoa put him on his
backside a little more than a minute into the second round. Tapusoa
swarmed but only seemed to awaken the former Pat Miletich
protégé. McFedries found a home for his jab and went to work on
Tapusoa’s lead leg with a series of thudding kicks.

McFedries saved his best for last. In the third round, he unleashed
crisp combinations, pumped a stiff jab into his opponent’s face and
opened a horrendous gash above Tapusoa’s left eye. A stinging
uppercut that forced the game Samoan to turn away from the battle
finished it with just 18 seconds left in the fight.